Page:The heptalogia, or, The seven against sense - a cap with seven bells (IA heptalogiaorseve00swin).pdf/102

 I regarded her, though, with the chivalrous eyes of a knight-errant on quest; I may say I don't know that I ever felt prouder, old friend, of a conquest. And when I've been made happy, I never have cared a brass farthing who knew it; I Thank my stars I'm as free from mock-modesty, friend, as from vulgar fatuity.

You may see by my shortness of speech that my time's almost up: I perceive That my new-fangled brevity strikes you: but don't—though the public will—grieve. As it's sometimes my whim to be vulgar, it's sometimes my whim to be brief; As when once I observed, after Heine, that 'she was a harlot, and I' (which is true) 'was a thief.'